article Sociatry

Thu Apr 19 09:40:13 CDT 2007

Ron,
Great comment - much appreciate your contribution - Adam's - all of  
ours, together.
Ed
On Apr 19, 2007, at 10:35 AM, Ronald Anderson wrote:

> I feel a need to say something to the discussion of sociatry, since  
> I am conducting a training weekend on the relationship between  
> Moreno and Hellinger (Constellation Work)
>
> Here the two men are practically on the same page.   For a second,  
> may I simplify our
> man, Moreno, by saying that his goal was that ultimately all men  
> would come together
> into a working relationship once they took time to understand where  
> each other was coming from, the ultimate role reversal with  
> everyone else in the world, not to agree with each other, but in  
> mutual respect for each other's position.
>
> Hellinger came to the same place through his experiential  
> experimentations in Germany
> in the 80's, working with the survivors and descendents of the  
> Hollocaust, together with
> the perpetuators, the Nazis.   I played in one of these dramas, as  
> a Nazi who had given
> the orders for the extermination.   I turned away from the bodies  
> that lay around me, and
> looked up, with my chin in the air, rationalizations coming to me  
> right and left.   Then the
> facilitator asked me to look at them.   I had a hard time doing  
> that, but the facilitator kept after me to look.   After what  
> seemed like 10 minutes, my body shook, and finally I yelled out a  
> piercing scream, my own body collapsed, and I lay next to one of my  
> victims.   Still the facilitator made me turn my head and look at  
> one of my victims, who turned automatically and looked back at  
> me.   With that look, I felt the common humanity, and understood.   
> I had finally came to a peace inside.   Every time Hellinger made  
> the victims and their perpetrators look at each other, SEE each  
> other, the result was the same as
> Moreno's goal of universal role reversal, where we could also see  
> each other's humanity, proven now by the experiential method itself
>
> Ron Anderson.
>
> Adam Blatner <adam at blatner.com> wrote:
> I tend to agree with Jim, for yet another reason: Sometimes I find  
> the argumentation to be
> overgeneralized, the semantic distortions obvious, and so forth,  
> yet hate to speak up lest
> I be accused of mere pedantry. Yet I feel weight tends to be given  
> to the most emotional,
> lest any objection be viewed as doubting the sincerity of the  
> passionate one, or the
> rightness of the cause. More modest proposals or stances seem puny  
> or wishy-washy.
> Nevertheless, it is often the more modest stances, ones with more  
> qualifications in their
> arguments, that are the more rational.
> So there's a sociometric dynamic: Can I object to this or that turn  
> of statement
> without feeling that others will be overly angry?
> Thus does intemperate language affect the social field.
> hm.
> Adam
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "James Sacks"
> To:
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 6:58 PM
> Subject: Re: article Sociatry
>
>
> > Hey, you guys,
> > GroupTalk is not about international politics. If we get into  
> that it
> > would deviate us well beyond the scope of our reason for being.
> > People on all sides of political issues have very strong feelings
> > about their views but we as socidramatists are supposed to learn how
> > to deal with such divided feelings in a group, not enter into the
> > fray by fighting it out as a partisan for one side or the other on
> > GroupTalk. We all have are views but we don't start telling our
> > favorite recipes in a class in mathematics no matter good they taste
> > and, if someone is so inappropriate as to do that, we don't argue
> > back about how bad it tastes.
> > Jim
> >
> >>I find Pinter's article a simplistic reaction and polarization of  
> complex
> >>historical issues. I am not supporting the war, or Bush, or the  
> US. I see
> >>much of what is happening as systemic and historical; I see a  
> larger world
> >>and evolutionary picture. Right now US is the major player and  
> "fighting"
> >>to remain so. The long history of British colonization has  
> probably had more
> >>to with what is happening today than what the US has done  
> historically,
> >>although the US has been in the "role" for decades. Many of the  
> European
> >>nations had historical parts in the conflicts around the world  
> Pinter
> >>mentions, eg, the middle east, a conflict whose seeds were sown  
> in centuries
> >>of European colonization and hatred. Yet, I see all of these  
> problems as
> >>based on human evolution, and how societies have formed and  
> functioned, and
> >>have not evolved from domination world views and practices.
> >>
> >>Pinter's reaction is typical of social activism that only knows  
> protest and
> >>polarization to try to stop what is happening. And is a reaction  
> typical of
> >>social activists who demonize one side over the other, making one  
> side seem
> >>the innocent victim, which also is not historically or currently  
> accurate.
> >>That is confronting the dynamics of the problem with the same  
> dynamics; Bush
> >>is demonizing, so demonize back.
> >>
> >>Also, I don't think it's effective. I have marched the marches,  
> much in
> >>the 60's and some recently. I marched with 10's of millions of  
> others
> >>around the globe to protest the Iraq war from happening, and how  
> effective
> >>was that? I am coming to believe that marching and protesting are  
> pissing
> >>in the wind, b/c it is attempting to address historical systemic  
> issues with
> >>polarization, when what is needed is systemic transformation, a
> >>transcendence in human evolution.
> >>
> >>I believe there are seeds for contributing to this human  
> transformation in
> >>the sociometric concepts Moreno was forming. We have discussed  
> this some on
> >>this list before, ie, how to apply these concepts to larger  
> societies. It
> >>is astronomically complex. But until the transformation of systemic
> >>dynamics of historical societal structures, I don't think  
> anything will
> >>change...unless the planet is destroyed first. No one has the  
> answers yet,
> >>but demonizing one side over the other and polarizing, although I  
> understand
> >>it emotionally, is not contributing to change. If anything, it is  
> the
> >>status quo.
> >>
> >>Cynthia Gayle, CP
> >>Seattle
> >>
> >>----- Original Message -----
> >>From:
> >>To:
> >>Sent: Monday, April 16, 2007 6:33 PM
> >>Subject: : article
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> -- >
> >>> >
> >>> > Remember we were talking about Britain....and what the heck  
> are they
> >>> >saying in England
> >>> > well, this article came out in England and at least some  
> Brits are
> >>> >thinking.
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> > http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm? 
> itemID=12453§ionID=72
> >>> >ZNet
> >>> >Why George Bush is Insane
> >>> >By Harold Pinter (Nobel Prize Winning Author)
> >>> >
> >>> >Earlier this year I had a major operation for
> >>> >cancer. The operation and its after-effects
> >>> >were something of a nightmare. I felt I was a
> >>> >man unable to swim bobbing about under water in
> >>> >a deep dark endless ocean. But I did not drown
> >>> >and I am very glad to be alive.
> >>> >
> >>> >However, I found that to emerge from a personal
> >>> >nightmare was to enter an infinitely more
> >> > >pervasive public nightmare - the nightmare of
> >> > >American hysteria, ignorance, arrogance,
> >>> >stupidity and belligerence; the most powerful
> >>> >nation the world has ever known effectively
> >>> >waging war against the rest of the world. "If
> >>> >you are not with us you are against us"
> >>> >President Bush has said. He has also said "We
> >>> >will not allow the world's worst weapons to
> >>> >remain in the hands of the world's worst
> >>> >leaders". Quite right. Look in the mirror chum.
> >>> >That's you.
> >>> >
> >>> >The US is at this moment developing advanced
> >>> >systems of "weapons of mass destruction" and it
> >>> >prepared to use them where it sees fit. It has
> >>> >more of them than the rest of the world put
> >>> >together. It has walked away from international
> >>> >agreements on biological and chemical weapons,
> >>> >refusing to allow inspection of its own
> >>> >factories. The hypocrisy behind its public
> >>> >declarations and its own actions is almost a
> >>> >joke.
> >>> >
> >>> >The United States believes that the three
> >>> >thousand deaths in New York are the only deaths
> >>> >that count, the only deaths that matter. They
> >>> >are American deaths. Other deaths are unreal,
> >>> >abstract, of no consequence.
> >>> >
> >>> >The three thousand deaths in Afghanistan are
> >>> >never referred to.
> >>> >
> >>> >The hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children
> >>> >dead through US and British sanctions which
> >>> >have deprived them of essential medicines are
> >>> >never referred to.
> >>> >
> >>> >The effect of depleted uranium, used by America
> >>> >in the Gulf War, is never referred to.
> >>> >Radiation levels in Iraq are appallingly high.
> >>> >Babies are born with no brain, no eyes, no
> >>> >genitals. Where they do have ears, mouths or
> >>> >rectums, all that issues from these orifices is
> >>> >blood.
> >>> >
> >>> >The two hundred thousand deaths in East Timor
> >>> >in 1975 brought about by the Indonesian
> >>> >government but inspired and supported by the
> >>> >United States are never referred to.
> >>> >
> >>> >The half a million deaths in Guatemala, Chile,
> >>> >El Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Argentina and
> >>> >Haiti, in actions supported and subsidised by
> >>> >the United States are never referred to.
> >>> >
> >>> >The millions of deaths in Vietnam, Laos and
> >>> >Cambodia are no longer referred to.
> >>> >
> >>> >The desperate plight of the Palestinian people,
> >>> >the central factor in world unrest, is hardly
> >>> >referred to.
> >>> >
> >>> >But what a misjudgement of the present and what
> >>> >a misreading of history this is.
> >>> >
> >>> >People do not forget. They do not forget the
> >>> >death of their fellows, they do not forget
> >>> >torture and mutilation, they do not forget
> >>> >injustice, they do not forget oppression, they
> >>> >do not forget the terrorism of mighty powers.
> >>> >They not only don't forget. They strike back.
> >>> >
> >>> >The atrocity in New York was predictable and
> >>> >inevitable. It was an act of retaliation
> >>> >against constant and systematic manifestations
> >>> >of state terrorism on the part of the United
> >>> >States over many years, in all parts of the
> >>> >world.
> >>> >
> >>> >In Britain the public is now being warned to be
> >>> >"vigilant" in preparation for potential
> >>> >terrorist acts. The language is in itself
> >>> >preposterous.
> >>> >
> >>> >How will - or can - public vigilance be
> >>> >embodied? Wearing a scarf over your mouth to
> >>> >keep out poison gas? However, terrorist attacks
> >>> >are quite likely, the inevitable result of our
> >>> >Prime Minister's contemptible and shameful
> >>> >subservience to the United States. Apparently,
> >>> >a terrorist poison gas attack on the London
> >>> >Underground system was recently prevented. But
> >>> >such an act may indeed take place. Thousands of
> >>> >school children travel on the London
> >>> >Underground every day. If there is a poison gas
> >>> >attack from which they die, the responsibility
> >>> >will rest entirely on the shoulders of our
> >>> >Prime Minister. Needless to say, the Prime
> >>> >Minister does not travel on the underground
> >>> >himself.
> >>> >
> >>> >The planned war against Iraq is in fact a plan
> >>> >for premeditated murder of thousands of
> >>> >civilians in order, apparently, to rescue them
> >>> >from their dictator.
> >>> >
> >>> >The United States and Britain are pursuing a
> >>> >course which can lead only to an escalation of
> >> > >violence throughout the world and finally to
> >> > >catastrophe.
> >>> >
> >>> >It is obvious, however, that the United States
> >>> >is bursting at the seams to attack Iran. I
> >>> >believe that it will do this - not just to take
> >>> >control of Iraqi oil - but because the US
> >>> >administration is now a bloodthirsty wild
> >>> >animal. Bombs are its only vocabulary. Many
> >>> >Americans, we know, are horrified by the
> >>> >posture of their government but seem to be
> >>> >helpless.
> >>> >
> >>> >Unless Europe finds the solidarity,
> >>> >intelligence, courage and will to challenge and
> >>> >resist US power Europe itself will deserve
> >>> >Alexander Herzen's definition (as quoted in the
> >>> >Guardian newspaper in London recently) "We are
> >>> >not the doctors. We are the disease".
> >>> >
> >>> >Harold Pinter
> >>> >
> >>> >The Assassinated Press
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> > --------
> >>> > See what's free at AOL.com.
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>>  
> >_____________________________________________________________________ 
> ___
> >>> >AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about  
> what's free
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> >>> >=0
> >>>
> >>>
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